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Civil rights leaders traveled to Berlin this week to ask Mercedes executives to speak out against Alabama’s anti-immigrant law. The delegation is part of an effort to pressure Alabama's top automakers -- Honda, Hyundai and Daimler AG -- to oppose Alabama’s HB 56, known as the toughest immigration law in the country.

"They didn't go as far as we would have liked, but they did start the conversation," said America’s Voice Managing Director Patty Kupfer, who attended the Mercedes shareholders' meeting on Wednesday. Kupfer, whose great-grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Germany, said they would not be welcomed in Alabama today. She was joined by Fred Redmond, international vice president for the United Steelworkers and member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council and Renata Soto, National Council of La Raza board member and executive director of Conexión Américas.

Last month, representatives from SEIU and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights traveled to South Korea to deliver the same message at a Hyundai shareholders' conference. In June, a delegration plans to attend a Honda shareholders' meeting in Japan.